CONSPIRACY CORNER: Experiments in time and space

Time Travel, teleportation and travelling back and forward to Mars. These three amazing feats aren’t just things you will find in Doctor Who, Star Trek and The Watchmen. No, according to legend, man – specifically the US Government (those guys again!!??) – has already conquered the time and space conundrum and has being doing all three since the 1940s.

Welcome to the future, via the past but here in the present. It’s all very confusing. Let me explain in the first of a special two-part Conspiracy Corner…

Part 1:

The Philadelphia Experiment – AKA Project Rainbow

We begin our journey across time and space in 1940s America, Philadelphia to be exact and to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. With war raging in Europe, the US Navy are alleged to have sponsored the conducting of experiments and tests where scientists would attempt to use Einstein’s ‘Unified Field Theory’. In layman’s terms this basically means bringing the fields of gravity and electromagnetism together into one field. In theory, this would result in the light bending and space time could then be manipulated in order to either render the object invisible to not only enemy radar but also, crucially, to enemy eyes! In theory.

The object in question was a US Navy Destroyer Escort named the USS Eldridge (below), which was named after Lieutenant Commander John Eldridge, Jr.

There are two different versions of The Philadelphia Experiment. Both involve the same ship and the events take place on two separate days, the first in the summer of 1943 and the second in the autumn.

The first alleged experiment involved an untested method of electrical field manipulation. This is said to have rendered the USS Eldridge almost invisible and some witnesses to the experiment reported seeing a green haze appearing in its place. When the ship reappeared there were reports of some of the crew suffering from extreme nausea, other sailors are said to have gone insane and more alarmingly there are stories involving some of the crew actually becoming stuck within the metal of the ship. One sailor was on the deck below where he started and his hand had become stuck within the ship’s hull.

The second experiment took place the late summer of 1943 and there were variations to the original experiment as the US Navy decided that the primary objective was to make the ship completely invisible to enemy radar. The equipment that was being used wasn’t recalibrated properly and although scientists knew this, the experiment went ahead regardless. In spite of this, the experiment was a success as the USS Eldridge became completely invisible, however she appeared to have physically vanished altogether in a flash of brilliant blue light and she was teleported to Norfolk, Virginia, over 200 miles away from the Philadelphia shipyard.

The ship was alleged to have appeared to the crew aboard the SS Andrew Furuseth, it then vanished from sight reappearing back at the Philadelphia shipyard in its original spot. It was reported that in the midst of the teleportation, the ship had went back in time a full 10 seconds. As in the first experiment some of the crew experienced severe side effects, some had become fused to the bulkheads of the ship and others became insane while some weren’t so lucky and they didn’t make it back at all.

In order to ensure that crew members maintained their silence it is alleged that whoever was lucky enough to still be alive were subjected to mind control and brainwashing techniques.

No other experiments are thought to have been carried out on the USS Eldridge as part of The Philadelphia Experiment and between January 1944 and May 1945 she was used to escort vital materials and also soldiers to Allied war efforts in the Mediterranean, North Africa and Southern Europe. She also served in the Pacific until the end of World War 2 and she was placed out of commission on the 17th June 1946. Then in January 1951 she was transferred to Greece under the Mutual Defence Assistance Program and was renamed HS Leon. Leon was decommissioned in 1992 after nearly 50 years of service and she was sold as scrap in November 1999.

The Montauk Project

From the ashes of The Philadelphia Experiment came The Montauk Project. There are many different conspiracy theories around the Montauk Project, each more fantastical than the last but in the interest of not going off topic and having me writing until the wee hours of the morning we will stick to its connection to The Philadelphia Experiment.

Researchers who worked on the doomed Philadelphia Experiment in 1943, along with some of the Nazi scientists rounded up as part of Operation Paperclip after the fall of the Third Reich at the end of World War II, all met in 1953 with the intention of continuing on with their work on manipulating the fields of electromagnetism and gravity. The objective was to assess the applications of magnetic field manipulation and figure out if it could be used in psychological warfare. Mind control, brain washing and repressed memories amongst others.

The researchers initially approached the United States Congress in order to secure funding for their experiments but Congress baulked when they found out what the project would entail and the dangers that existed when carrying out the kind of experiments the scientists were proposing. Not letting this minor mishap derail their plans they decided the best way forward would be to bypass Congress altogether and go straight to the US Department of Defence. In a complete 180 to what Congress thought, the DOD agreed after the researchers promised to work on developing a weapon that could instantly bring on psychotic episodes on whoever it was used against. To add further intrigue to the Montauk story – as if it were needed – funding for the project is alleged to have come from a cache of $10 billion of Nazi Gold Bullion found by a group of American soldiers in a derailed train on the French/Swiss border. After the gold was removed the train was destroyed and the whole squad of soldiers were killed to aid in the cover up.

After securing funding, initial work took place at Brookhaven National Labs on Long Island under the name The Phoenix Project. It soon became apparent that in order to do their tests the researchers would require a large radar dish (below). As luck would have it, the United States Air Force had a decommissioned base at Montauk, New York which wasn’t far from Brookhaven and had a complete and more importantly operational radar installation. The site was also large enough to house the Phoenix Project and remote enough so as not to arouse suspicion and thanks to easy access to the base via the water surrounding it, essential equipment could move freely without the risk of detection. Furthermore the SAGE Radar system at Montauk was essential to the researchers plans as it was capable of working on the frequencies that are alleged to influence the human mind, thus enabling them to work on psychological weapons.

And so The Montauk Project was born.

Of all the experiments that were allegedly carried out at Montauk one stands out as it links to a future project. While investigating the Unified Field Theory it was discovered that it was possible to open up ‘Time Tunnels’ and these tunnels could be manipulated in order to send anyone anywhere in time and space. For all the sci-fi nerds out there this will sound very familiar as a similar ‘device’ was used in the hit TV series Stargate.

In fact, that’s exactly how one man describes what he used in order to travel into the past, the future and even to Mars while working as a ‘chrononaut’ (what a job title) while still only a child (from 7 years of age until 12).

In Part 2 next week I will be taking an in depth look at Project Pegasus and the unbelievable story of Andrew Basiago. And I will hopefully have an interview with the man himself… fingers crossed!

My name is Gerard, I’m 27 and I live in Belfast with my wife and two kids. I’m a lover of all things sci-fi and I’m a self-confessed Bruce Springsteen super fan. My favourite super hero is and will always be the Man of Steel himself – Superman. Some would say that I have an unhealthy interest in conspiracy theories but that's what THEY want you to think!

You Might Also Be Interested In:

FTN's Nerd News

Welcome…

Hey there, welcome to the website of Following The Nerd. Here you can stay up to date on all the latest news, reviews, articles & information across all mediums from games to action figures. We've got it covered!